IBM to Acquire RAMSAN Maker Texas Memory Systems

Today, IBM [NYSE:IBM] announced that they plan to acquire privately owned high performance solid state solutions provider, Texas Memory Systems or TMS. IBM states that they plan to integrate TMS’ solutions into their product offerings to enable better performance and value to their customers.

TMS designs and sells solid-state storage solutions for high performance enterprise applications which fits very well into IBM’s plans for the future. This deal further validates the entire flash memory industry as one that is being closely watched by the bigger players in the industry and is desirable. This recognition of flash storage as the future also opens up the possibility of other solid-state manufacturers being acquired by companies that are in storage, but lack serious solid-state solutions for their consumers and enterprise.

The two biggest notable companies that lack those solutions are Western Digital and Seagate. In the past few months, there have been endless rumors about acquisitions of these companies with some of them fizzling out. In the current role inside of IBM, TMS is likely to gain quite a bit of traction with IBM’s current customer base and to also benefit from IBM’s extensive R&D spending. The deal is expected to close by the end of this calendar year and by then we believe there will be more solid-state acquisitions already announced.